Suppose, as the mother sits beside the small bed, drinking with her eyes
that draught of ecstatick pleasure which only Woman's heart can taste, she
could perceive the spirit of her boy, rising from the body that it leaves
behind in roseate sleep, a thousand times more beautiful than it and yet
the same; and still her own; and taking upon himself, as of his proper
right, the grace and charm of 'a young and rose-lipped cherub,' should
chase, (and all within her sight,) the rainbow-butterflies of Paradise
across its swards of velvet, and laugh in music to express his joy!

Suppose that to the husband it should be given to behold his Wife--the
pure in heart!--walking like a seraph in the Spiritual Life, as the
earliest light of morning moves along the hill-tops; her countenance
'beautified with salvation' and joy unfolding itself at her approach: he
sees and follows her as she enters into grottoes of shells, compared with
which all flowers of Earth are mere attempts at colour! She listens to
choirs of angels, joining worthily with them in the celestial chaunt! and
when the hearts of both are elevated by the anthem strain, she kneels in
solitude and prays for him in words that rise to Heaven, a grateful and
accepted incense!

Regard in silence those features of the young and beautiful upon the bed
of slow consuming death; with what a grace do they not awake from the
momentary trance of sleep! thoughts, not given to be revealed, have been
garnered by that precious spirit as it hath soared upward toward the
Heaven that is now bending with a summons unto everlasting Life! How
gently yet how touchingly do not its glances and its last regrets pass
through the diaphanous covering that remains to it of mortality, upon the
friend who gazes in equal love and wonder at its side! how like the light
within the vase! how sublimated the expression! how intent, how occupied
that long look! how effulgent that passage of hope! how intimate, how
exalted must have been the communion, when gleams of Faith and Joy, too
beautiful for utterance, indicate the redeemed soul just fluttering to
ascend in 'robes made white in the blood of the Lamb!'

Are not these and such as these, imaginations, communions, capacities,
employments of the soul in Dreams? Ah! if what is called the Sleep of
Death be mysterious, be awful, be sublime, be beautiful at times; how much
more so,--when the form lies waiting to be revivified by the quick return
of the excursive